when your diagnosed with diabetes there is always a certain amount of blame that you lay on yourself. you ask yourself 'what if?' what if i didn't eat those sweets? what if i had exercised more? what if i had lived that perfect lifestyle that doctors recommend? would i still be diabetic?
then, if your t1 your told its not your fault. it was your immune system destroying the insulin cells, theres nothing you could have done. they can then stop blaming themselves.
but if your t2 its a different story. you get told how if you eat better and lose weight and exercise more you'll magically be cured. your told that at the end of the day, you are completely to blame for getting diabetes as there are supposedly ways to prevent it. (just to add, i know that diet, weight and lack of exercise aren't always to blame with t2, but that is the general view on it from doctors)
there have been so many times that i have had these things said to me. i was diagnosed as a t2 diabetic at the age of 16. did i bring that on myself? i have never eaten hugely unhealthily, although i am overweight, its never been by a huge amount and i do an average amount of exercise. so what is it exactly that i have done so wrong to get diabetes?
well today i got the answer.
i didn't do anything wrong!!! today i found out that the tests i had done in July have confirmed that i have maturity onset diabetes of the young (mody - mody 3 to be precise) today i found out that despite what the doctors have told me for the last 2yrs, there is nothing i could have done to prevent diabetes invading my body as it was my genes that caused it. today i can finally stop blaming myself for all of this mess.
but its bitter sweet.
mody is a genetic disorder. it is a dominant gene which means that all of my children will each have a 50% chance of inheriting it too, even if my partner doesn't carry the gene. 50%. that's a big gamble. i would hate myself if i ever passed on that gene to my children. but then, my siblings also have a 50% chance of already having that gene in their body. a 50% chance that diabetes is waiting to claim their bodies too.
but we are now one step further on. i now know what it is I've got and can be treated properly. no more metformin, no more doctors trying to force the t2 treatments on me. and my siblings can now be monitored too. hopefully with that in place we can catch diabetes early if it happens and treat it in the right way from the start.
when i saw the consultant today i could tell he genuinely wanted to help. he told me about the measures that can be put in place for siblings to be tested regularly to keep an eye out for diabetes. he told me about a tablet that i can start if i want instead of the insulin which is taken with meals but acts more like insulin than gliclazide etc (it isn't an insulin tablet, it simply acts the same amount of time and is absorbed in the same amount of time as rapid insulin but means no injections).... he made me feel like i had some control over what is going on with my diabetes and he has said that i have control over whether i start on this tablet or not.... I've decided against it for now, but the option is always there if i want it....
its funny how something as small as an accurate diagnosis can change things so much. it wasn't my fault, i now know that.
today is the first day of the rest of my life
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